TERRE BONNE

The present-day story centers on patriarch Jacot Terrebonne, who learns that, against his wishes, his deceased wife Rosa has donated her body to science. Jacot is haunted by the thought that Rosa’s bones will not come to rest in the land that has been theirs for generations, and lashes out against the Catholic priest whom he blames for encouraging Rosa’s decision, a newcomer to town from Nigeria.

Meanwhile, a feud seethes between Jacot and Rosa’s nephew, poacher Boy Broussard, over hunting rights on the Terrebonne property, which is itself under siege by the forces of erosion. Every member of the Terrebonne family has their own understanding of home, from Jacot’s granddaughter Joanna, who seeks to root herself even more deeply into the place that her mother abandoned, to Boy, who has no legal claim to the land off which he makes his living, though he knows every inch of it instinctively. The novel is punctuated by historical interludes set in Louisiana, France, Nova Scotia and Nigeria, dating as far back as 15 B.C.E., featuring characters who are ancestors and analogs of the principal characters. These historical interludes represent a sort of Cajun Genesis, an ur-narrative that defines the characters’ tenuous relationship to land.

Soileau’s unforgettable characters struggle with both homesickness for the place that was and detachment from the place that is, as she explores the peculiar kind of psychic ache that comes from living in a place under siege by environmental and economic collapse. Deeply rooted in the grief over the gradual and inevitable loss of Soileau’s home state as she watched her Cajun grandparents grow old and die, knowing that more than loss of loved ones, the death of their generation meant the further erosion of a culture and language on the brink of extinction. And just as in almost every other obscure corner of the world, the homogenizing effects of television and the Internet have been rounding off the corners that once made the place, her home, so unique.